


Practice makes perfect

by CreateOwnHell



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Hurt Tony, I'm Sorry, One Shot, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric, i m not sure, or maybe like a hanging ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 12:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7684150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreateOwnHell/pseuds/CreateOwnHell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you wear a false cover so much you start to believe it to be true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practice makes perfect

Tony was ignorant, living in this image people had forced upon him. But he was happy with that picture.

Then Afghanistan happened, and the man that returned, wasn’t the same who left.

The one who came back was a tortured and a tired man, ripped out of the canvas and then the frame was burned to ashes, to make sure he can never crawl back.

The face that used to have a carefree smile, wore nothing more but a painful memory of what used to be.

Smiling became a chore, trying to keep up the performance of a role he wanted to quit.

Along the lines, he had taken a habit of practicing his smiling in front of the bathroom mirror. The variety he went through was exhausting, each and every smile he plastered on was just so painfully fake to his own eyes.

_Too much teeth._

_Too little emotion._

_The eyes that never matched._

After a while, it got easier. Not the pain he carried, but the smiles he gave.

Then Ultron happened, and he was pushed further into his own self-deprecation.

‘’Smile god dammit, Stark men don’t show weakness.’’ He would repeat that in his head over and over and over every time he practiced his smiles. Never leaving the mirror before he was satisfied with it.

And no one once again noticed. And Tony thought to himself, that he is mastering this very well. He built an arc reactor in a cave, he can fake a smile.

Then Siberia happened.

But this time he didn’t practice his smile in front of the mirror as he lied on the ground. It came to him naturally. All that practice finally paid off.

Tony smiled his last real smile in Afghanistan, when Rhodey found him in the desert.

And he has been forcing it ever since then.

The perfect broken smile that no one ever saw through, stuck on his face as he waited for death to take him.

Whether or not he himself is aware of it, no one will know.

Because by the time they find his body, he has already left the fight.

**Author's Note:**

> I love you Tony, I'm sorry. Hurting you hurts me !!!


End file.
